As used herein, the terms “user equipment” or “UE” might in some cases refer to mobile devices such as mobile telephones, personal digital assistants, handheld or laptop computers, and similar devices that have telecommunications capabilities. Such a UE might include a device and its associated removable memory module, such as but not limited to a Universal Integrated Circuit Card (UICC) that includes a Subscriber Identity Module (SIM) application, a Universal Subscriber Identity Module (USIM) application, or a Removable User Identity Module (R-UIM) application. Alternatively, such a UE might include the device itself without such a module. In other cases, the term “UE” might refer to devices that have similar capabilities but that are not transportable, such as desktop computers, set-top boxes, or network appliances. The term “UE” can also refer to any hardware or software component that can terminate a communication session for a user. Also, the terms “user equipment,” “UE,” “user agent,” “UA,” “user device,” and “mobile device” might be used synonymously herein.
As telecommunications technology has evolved, more advanced network access equipment has been introduced that can provide services that were not possible previously. This network access equipment might include systems and devices that are improvements of the equivalent equipment in a traditional wireless telecommunications system. Such advanced or next generation equipment may be included in evolving wireless communications standards, such as long-term evolution (LTE). For example, an LTE system might include an Evolved Universal Terrestrial Radio Access Network (E-UTRAN) node B (eNB), a wireless access point, a relay, a remote radio head, or a similar component rather than a traditional base station. Any such component may be referred to herein as an eNB, but it should be understood that such a component is not necessarily an eNB. Such a component may also be referred to herein as an access node. Also, the terms “eNB” and “cell” might be used interchangeably herein.
Services that might be provided by LTE-based equipment can include broadcasts or multicasts of television programs, streaming video, streaming audio, and other multimedia content. Such services are commonly referred to as multimedia broadcast multicast services (MBMS). An MBMS might be transmitted throughout a single cell or throughout several contiguous or overlapping cells in the same or different carriers. When multiple cells overlap, a UE within the overlapped region can receive transmissions from multiple eNBs. When a UE receives substantially identical data from a plurality of eNBs, the transmissions from the eNBs can augment one another to provide a signal of significantly higher quality than would be the case if only one eNB were transmitting the signal. That is, a higher signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio can be achieved when substantially the same data is transmitted at substantially the same time on substantially the same resource with substantially the same modulation and coding. A set of cells in which a plurality of substantially identical signals are present is known as a single frequency network, or SFN. If an MBMS is being transmitted with substantially identical signals in a set of cells, the set of cells can be referred to as a multicast/broadcast SFN (MBSFN).